"You don't know shit! This is called fleshing out the character!"
Ma Lou tossed his hair with a flamboyant flourish and lectured him earnestly:
"Think about it. A hot-blooded refugee burdened with a blood feud, who watched his hometown get destroyed and his benefactors die in battle... how could he possibly sleep through this long night?"
"He has to pace alone in the courtyard! He has to sigh at the sky! He has to stroke the dry well and shed tears!"
"This is atmospheric acting! This is the ultimate pursuit of art!"
"Only then, if someone happens to be watching us in secret, will they find our reactions completely convincing!"
With that, Ma Lou gave Jiahao no chance to argue.
He opened the door a crack, slipped out like a ghost, and pulled it shut behind him.
A few seconds later, through the gaps in the woodshed's dilapidated window.
Jiahao adjusted his Monocle and gazed out at the courtyard with a complicated expression.
There, beneath the faint glow of the Deity Barrier.
Ma Lou was hunched over beside the abandoned well that had long since dried up, pacing back and forth at an excruciatingly slow speed.
Every two steps, he stopped to sigh.
Then he raised his head and gazed up at the night sky shrouded in black fog, his eyes filled with utter bewilderment and a hint of resolve.
Occasionally, he even extended his trembling right hand to gently stroke the rough surface of the dry well, radiating a desolation and melancholy that could almost freeze the air.
That silhouette, that posture.
He brought the image of a "wanderer yearning for his shattered homeland" to life with absolute perfection.
Watching from inside, Jiahao couldn't stop the corners of his eyes from twitching wildly.
"Fleshing out the character, my ass..."